Constituent structure of morphemes The constituent morphemes of a word can be organized into a hierarchical structure. Examples of Allomorphs: 1. The idea is that we each have a mental lexicon, a bit like a dictionary in our heads, that stores all the words we know. A morpheme, then, is a set of allomorphs that have the same set of features. Just as an allophone is a variation of a single phoneme, an allomorph is a variety of a single morpheme.

All allomorphs with the same set of features forms a morpheme. It must be emphasized that many morphemes in English have only one phonemic form, that is, one allomorph – for example, the morpheme ( boy ) and ( hood ) each has one allomorph - /bɔy/ and /-hUd/ - as in boyhood. It is merely a sound unit. First, inflectional morphemes never change the grammatical category (part of speech) of a word. The following box illustrates: The allomorphs of a morpheme are derived from phonological rules and any morphophonemic rules that may apply to that morpheme. Allomorph definition, any of two or more different forms of the same chemical compound. Another difference is that they may or may not be semantic. The plural morphemes in English, usually written as {s}, has at least three allomorphs: {s} as in „hats‟ [‘hæts] {z} as in „dogs‟ [‘dɒgz] {ɪz} as in „boxes‟ [‘bɒksɪz]

For example, tall and taller are both adjectives. The basic different between the types of morphemes and a word is the freestanding property. A morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit of a language. As nouns the difference between allophones and allomorphs is that allophones is while allomorphs is . But, a morpheme can never comprise of any words inside it. Differences between Derivational and Inflectional Morphemes There are some differences between inflectional and derivational morphemes. Difference between morpheme and phoneme is very important in linguistics. A word may have one or more than one morphemes. The relationship between a morpheme and allomorphs: When a morpheme is represented by a segment, that segment is a morph. If a morpheme can be represented by more than one morph, the morphs are allomorphs . See more. In some sense it corresponds to a word-form. Morphemes do not necessarily exist as free word whereas word is always free standing. A lexeme is like a headword in that dictionary. The word jump is a lexeme, for instance.

Allomorphs A morpheme is a unit of sound. The significant difference between the two is that while a morpheme carries a meaning a phoneme does not. A phoneme, on the other hand, is the smallest unit of speech. An allomorph is a morph that has a unique set of grammatical or lexical features.